THE MANUFACTURE OF OXYGEN ON MARS

NEW JOB FROM NASA

The demonstration took place on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, and NASA hopes that future versions of the experimental tool used can pave the way for exploration by humans.

Five grams of oxygen produced for ten minutes

Produced at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (Moxie) is a golden box the size of a car battery, located on the right front of the rover. Moxie has been manufactured with heat resistant materials to tolerate the scorching temperatures of 800 ° C required for its operation.

He uses electricity and chemistry to split CO2 molecules, producing oxygen on one side and carbon monoxide on the other.For his first experiment, Moxie produced five grams of oxygen, enough to breathe. for 10 minutes for an astronaut with normal activity. The engineers in charge of Moxie will now conduct more tests and try to increase this result. The tool has been developed to be able to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour.

An efficient and practical method

According to MIT engineer Michael Hecht, a one-ton Moxie - this one weighs 17 kg - could produce the roughly 25 tons of oxygen needed for a rocket to take off from Mars. Mars' atmosphere, made up of 96% carbon dioxide, may prove to be easier than extracting ice from below its surface to make oxygen by electrolysis.

Not only could the process produce oxygen for future astronauts to breathe, it could also prevent the large amounts of oxygen needed to propel the rocket on the return trip from Earth.

One more step forward in the colonization of the red planet ?